


we'll never be those kids again (but we can try)

by rilakkuma5



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, Blonde, F/M, Frank Ocean - Freeform, Romance, Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan Manga Spoilers, im still coping, lol
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-22 12:02:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30038415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rilakkuma5/pseuds/rilakkuma5
Summary: She had hoped this would happen differently. In an ideal world, it would have. They’d have been blushing and fumbling. Awkward laughter. Unsure hands. Soft kisses. All of it. In an ideal world, this would have played out like her fantasies—tender and loving.But the world is ending. For the umpteenth time. She’s lost count.———(Mikasa and Eren as songs from the album Blonde lol)
Relationships: Mikasa Ackerman/Eren Yeager
Comments: 2
Kudos: 28





	we'll never be those kids again (but we can try)

**Author's Note:**

> Oneshot collection (actually it's more like...oneshots _within_ oneshots) inspired by certain lines from Frank Ocean's Blonde. Initially I was going to do just my favorite songs from the album but I like the entire thing so ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ (I"m not doing some songs tho we shall see)...some canon, some not, some Mikasa POV, some Eren. I dont have any au's planned but shit! maybe!
> 
> I suggest you listen to Blonde cuz y not!
> 
> ***WARNING MANGA SPOILERS***

_He don’t care for me, but he cares for me and that’s good enough_

If Mikasa could ask for anything in the world, it would be to remain at Eren’s side. It’s a simple request, one that she doesn’t think is too bold to ask for.

If the world will not grant her this wish, she will make it happen herself.

He’s always running, without a look back, not even to check if she has caught up or if she’s even started herself. 

She wishes he’d wait for her, sometimes, but there is a certain beauty in his receding figure, in his form, and she sometimes finds herself stock still and watching. 

_Wait for me. Don’t go where I cannot._

Her scarf billows in the wind. He was the one that placed this around her neck and kept her warm in the snow all those years ago. He was the one that taught her freedom and the will to live—how to fight and kick for one single breath.

After a moment, she follows.

_We’re not in love, but I’ll make love to you. When you’re not here, I’ll save some for you._

She had hoped this would happen differently. In an ideal world, it would have. They’d have been blushing and fumbling. Awkward laughter. Unsure hands. Soft kisses. All of it. In an ideal world, this would have played out like her fantasies—tender and loving.

But the world is ending. For the umpteenth time. She’s lost count. 

She makes no move to help him find her opening. Only stares up at the ceiling. She doesn’t know if his eyes are open or not, if he’s looking at her at all, but she can feel him holding her down. As if she would run away. She wouldn’t. Never from him. 

Still, it’s uncomfortable and she will not look.

He’s pushing into her now. And even though she cannot feel anything—she’s doesn't know what this is supposed to feel like, whether it should be painful or pleasant—she cannot help the gasp that falls from her lips. 

That is the last sound she makes. He moves after a moment, a steady pace, hard and fast. She’s not sure if he’s trying to impress her or himself, or to get this over with quickly, but she bites her lip to the point where it may be bleeding, and focuses on the sole light on the ceiling. 

His haggard breathing fills the room and she thinks that it’s good that at least one of them is feeling _something_.

In an ideal world, he’d be in love with her. She thinks maybe he could be. Maybe that’s why he chose her for this. Or maybe he’s done this with every girl in their squadron. The thought makes her heart heavy and her throat tight.

She looks at him now. He’s not looking at her. His eyes are closed and his mouth is open and Mikasa wonders if he’d be upset if she pressed her lips to his. She wants to know how it feels, more than this. She wants to kiss him, to make him hers with her mouth alone, to know him in a way she knows no one else does.

She loves him so much. So much that she can feel tears stinging at her eyes. This, whatever this was supposed to be, was more than she could have ever asked for. 

“Eren.” She says. She had no intent on speaking and isn’t entirely sure what she’s meaning to say other than just his name itself. 

He opens his eyes and meets hers for half a second before focusing on her collarbone. Then the wall to his left. He’s closed his mouth now, heavy breaths coming out of his nose. He nods once. A cue to continue speaking.

“I—” She swallows. The concrete is hard on her back and is scraping against her neck. It will be red tomorrow. “I love you. Please stay.”

It all comes at once. His breath. His release. His anger. All onto her. For a moment, she’s scared.

She’s well aware she's ruined a good moment—maybe not _good_ but the best she’s had with him in a while, the closest. Maybe she was supposed to lay silently and just let him fuck her. Maybe this is all they could have. Maybe it didn’t matter that it was her, it could have been anyone. Maybe there’s nothing she could do or say. 

The world is ending. At his hands.

He stays on top of her, catching his breath, before wordlessly standing up and pulling up his pants. She lays silently, watching him, waiting for him to look at her. He does not. Not once. She’s either relieved or sad, but the feeling is difficult to give a name to. It’s heavy all the same, keeping her glued to the cold, hard floor. 

Eren turns towards the door before speaking. His voice comes out clear, like they didn’t just do what they did. Like he had just entered the room to say these two words.

“I can’t.”

When she’s sure he’s long gone, out of the door and into the night, down the stone path, into the carriages and along the dirt roads, miles away from her, does Mikasa stand and begin to dress.

When she’s sure there is no chance of his return, no chance of the door reopening, only then does Mikasa let herself cry.

_I’m not him, but I’ll mean something to you. I’ll mean something to you. I’ll mean something to you._

* * *

_I thought that I was dreamin' when you said you love me._

She suggested they run away.

It was something she had always thought about, always wanted. The main reason she joined the corps was because of Eren. She had no obligation to defend humanity. She had every obligation to defend him.

So she followed him. But it was getting to be too much. Everything was thrust on his shoulders and suddenly he had the power to hurt, to kill, to annihilate.

_What am I to you?_

She hardly remembers the rest of the conversation, only begging him to leave with her. Then his hands grabbing hers and quickly taking off through the trees. 

They ran for so long, not stopping once until they reached an abandoned house. It was good enough, their lives would start there.

In four years, his would end there.

She looks at him starting a small fire to keep them warm through the night. His face is expressionless as he works.

It has been a few months since they deserted. She cannot believe that he agreed. Cannot believe that this is real.

She reaches out to touch him when he sits beside her. He does not say anything but Mikasa smiles anyway.

_If I could see through walls, I could see you’re faking. If you could see my thoughts, you would see our faces._

He doesn’t have to shoulder the fate of the world on his own.

She knows she could never understand. She knows she’s not privy to the details, knows that he could never tell her everything.

Knows that he chooses to tell her nothing.

But he doesn’t have to do it on his own. Doesn’t have to pretend like it's only his burden to bear. After all she— _all of them_ —will live and die here.

She watches him—as she alway does—pensive and brooding. 

She never knows what is going through his mind, what he’s seeing, but she thinks that if hell exists, she’d follow him there.

_I ain’t a kid no more, we’ll never be those kids again._

It’s too easy to kill. Even easier to die.

Humanity should be as strong as its intellect suggests. But despite all their creations, human beings are so weak. Lumps of flesh that crumble at the slightest bit of pressure. 

A fall. Force to the neck. The skull. The heart. The brain. Too much of something, too little of another. 

It’s ridiculous. Funny in another timeline. Ironic, mostly, that creatures that have built so much are destroyed so easily. 

Gods to some, ants to others.

She’s seen it firsthand, stared mortality in its face. Watched the life leave someone’s eyes. Either by someone else’s hands—or _something's_ —or her own.

The first time she broke down in the darkness of her new home. Tears that would never stop. Nightmares every time she closed her eyes. A wretched cry that wrung her dry and left her hunched over and heaving.

It got easier after. It had to. It could be her next if she wasn’t alert, wasn’t prepared. A moment’s hesitation could be her last.

She had been taught to fight, to overcome her own mortality and move beyond her limits. She had been taught to live, to push for it, to will it with her own two hands and form a life by any means, even if it meant that living itself would be hard. 

She learned this before most. She's never hesitated since.

_Everything sucked back then we were friends._

There was a time where the threat of titans was distant. Only a subject learned in school. An existence behind the walls—a boogyman of sorts.

Happiness did not come easy and yet she found it, as small as it was, in a three bedroom cottage, with a family that wasn’t her own.

Sometimes it was difficult, to wake up in a bed that wasn’t hers, in a room that she did not recognize, in a town she would never have lived in.

Sometimes she’d find herself lost in thought while hanging the linens, wondering what it would have been like had her parents survived. If she’d have grown up in the farmlands her whole life. If she’d have ever known Eren like this.

(Sometimes, now, she finds herself thinking that her parents survival may have changed her fate, may have prevented the titans from breaking Wall Maria. She wonders if in a different timeline she’s with them, grown and happy in their cabin. She wonders if she'd have come to love Eren like she did.)

When the titans came, her world crumbled around her again. The little happiness she had was taken from her as easily as it had been the last time. 

At least Eren was there through all of it. Her only wish was that he’d stay through the rest of it.

She should have known, should have expected life to take this from her as easily as it has taken everything else.

_In the halls of your hotel, arm around my shoulder so I could tell how much I meant to you, meant it sincere back then. We had time to kill back then._

Occasionally she dreams of when she was young, after she was orphaned.

It was hard to adjust to her new living situation, even harder to grieve. Life moved on around her and she had to move on with it. Still, in the hours between night and dawn, she would wake up in tears, gasping and reaching for her mother.

She’d fall asleep with the scarf in her arms and wake up to Eren asking her to go to the market with him. 

He was an excited kid—more emotional than her, more expressive, more energy, just _more_. Sometimes, he shined so bright she’d have to cover her eyes to lessen his intensity. Everything about him was explosive—at the drop of a hat, he would be moving without a thought or plan, all muscle and body, even though he was so weak.

He got beat up so much. But she was prepared. Where he did not think, she did. Where he didn’t plan, she did. Where he was weak, she was strong. She was always right behind him and she liked to think that he knew she was there. That he’d run off because _she_ was his plan.

After fighting some of the rougher neighborhood bullies, she was tending to his wounds after his mother scolded him. He pouted and told her she didn't have to protect him, he's neither her brother or her son. She never understood it when he'd say this. Perhaps it was more complicated in an adolescent boy's mind—a girl being stronger than him. To her it was very simple: they were partners. A pair. She made up for what he lacked and vice versa.

She continued applying disinfectant and ointment to his scrapes and bruises in silence. When she was finished, he took the medical supplies from her and, without a word, dressed the lone scrape she had acquired. 

He pulled her up to her feet. "Let's play with Armin today."

_You ain't a kid no more. We'll never be those kids again._

She wishes they never joined the survey corps. She wishes they could have stayed in the walls without ever really knowing what laid in wait outside. He'd never have unlocked his titan powers. He'd never have become the military's weapon. He'd never have had to shoulder this burden that she could never know all by himself. He would have stayed by her side, where he was meant to be, where she could still protect him. 

He's changed so much. It's almost painful to see. He's taller, stronger. His hair falls past his eyes to his shoulders. He hardly speaks, now, and his eyes, that used to be so expressive, that used to glimmer with hope and ambition, are dull and downcast. She remembers how he was—the emotions that were always written on his face. The explosiveness, the _more_. The shine he casted, so blinding she'd have to cover her eyes against it. He's changed _too_ much. 

She wonders what he sees. What pushes him beyond her reach.

He's in the airship now, only feet from her. 

He's never been so far.

_I've been dreamin' of you, dreamin' of you._

He’s been dead for some time. Humanity is thankful, relieved at a second chance. The devil that came for them was defeated by her two hands.

She was promptly given a nice home in Mitras—a reward for her achievement. The floor is made from smooth stone, the walls built up from white bricks. Her counter tops are marble and she never lacks anything. Never goes hungry. Never has to fight. 

A time of peace. Never ending. Suffocating.

She wakes up every night crying, gasping for a breath that does not come easily. Here, they don’t understand how hard it is. They haven't seen what she's seen. Haven't done what she's done. 

It’s painful to live in this peace. Everything is so _still_ and she stands in it with her thoughts, with the nightmares. The memories. His _face_. Even though it's so hard to get herself out of bed, she has to wake up and eat and sleep and do it all over again the next day. Because it's what she's promised.

She wills herself to go back to sleep on the off chance that she might see what she saw during that last battle—might live in it again for at least a few hours. She has not seen it since that moment, she thinks she was only meant to see it then. Still, she tries to visualize the cabin and Eren holding firewood, tries to feel his warm embrace and close her eyes to it. 

When she finally does return to sleep—after much effort—she will only see him sleeping under the large tree.

**Author's Note:**

> let me know if you liked <3 :)
> 
> Can you tell I love Ivy lol


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